Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I accept your point, but I simply make this point in response to the Prime Minister: how can this Prime Minister look the Australian people in the face, how can this Prime Minister expect to be taken seriously, when she said to them at the National Press Club on 31 August:

I believe Australians want greater scrutiny of their government and greater accountability to parliament.

This is a Prime Minister who has not just run away from the people but run away from this parliament. This is a Prime Minister who day after day after day in this House runs away from parliamentary scrutiny and now she is refusing parliamentary scrutiny of the biggest structural change this country has ever been asked to make. This government is in deep, deep trouble, and why wouldn't it be in trouble, because a carbon tax only works if it hurts. This tax is going to hurt every single Australian, and members opposite know it. That is why they look so happy. Don't they look so happy, Mr Speaker? Don't they look so cheerful every time the Prime Minister gets up and gives us another one of these long exercises in pollie waffle and robo speak?

Finally, on Sunday, members opposite are going to get the bad news. This is a government by teleconference. That is what we are going to get—the 103 Labor members of parliament are going to ring up and get the recorded message: 'If you are a Labor member of parliament, press 1 and get a recorded message from the Prime Minister; if you are a Green member of parliament, press 2 and the Prime Minister will talk to you directly.' That is all she ever does. She talks directly to the Greens all the time.

We have had bad government in this country. We had bad government before the last election because we had a gang of four—the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, who was then the Prime Minister, and the former member for Melbourne. That gang of four gave us pink batts and school halls. Now what have we got? We have got the gang of six. We have got the Prime Minister, the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, two Greens senators and two Independents. The gang of six is just as bad at process as the gang of four was. Bad process gives us bad government. Bad government is the result of bad process.

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